The present invention relates to a fish and/or shellfish breeding apparatus for feeding fish and/or shellfish such as pearl oysters on land.
In pearl culture, one type of aquaculture, young pearl oysters are bred for a fixed period of time to be raised to mother pearl oysters. Then, a core is transplanted to the interior of each mother oyster for forming a pearl. While the mother oysters are raised in the sea for a fixed period of time, pearl oysters transform the cores into pearls. Then, the pearls are extracted from the interior of the mother oyster.
For breeding young pearl oysters for two to three months of development before the transplantation of cores, the young oysters are put into an aquarium filled with sterilized seawater. In addition, the aquarium is supplied with separately cultured plankton as food for the young shellfish. The seawater becomes dirty with unconsumed feed and excretion of the young shellfish during the culture. The dirty seawater is periodically replaced with sterilized seawater. Since the seawater replacement is performed on a periodic basis and on a large scale, it is laborious.
In the field of pearl culture, a large amount of pearl oysters have died in course of culture in recent years due to a variety of oceanic environment-based causes such as oceanic contamination, seawater warming, and parasitic protozoan or viruses. This large amount of dead pearl oysters sharply reduced in the yield of pearl oysters and pearls. Thus, recently, stable aquaculture has become increasingly difficult in the sea.
It is an object of the invention to provide a stable fish and/or shellfish breeding apparatus and method.
To achieve the above object, the invention includes a method and an apparatus. The apparatus includes an aquarium for containing the fish or shellfish and water and a decomposition treating bath for decomposing waste materials from the fish or shellfish such that water from the aquarium flows to the decomposition treating bath, and the decomposition treating bath treats the water. The apparatus also includes a feed culture bath for culturing feed for the fish or shellfish. Treated water from the decomposition bath is supplied to the feed culture bath.
The method includes providing an aquarium for containing the fish or shellfish and water, providing a decomposition treating bath, and conveying the water from the aquarium to the decomposition treating bath . The decomposition treating bath treats the water from the aquarium. The method also includes providing a feed culture bath for culturing feed for the fish or shellfish and conveying water from the decomposition treating bath to the feed culture bath. The method also includes supplying water that includes feed from the feed culture bath to the aquarium.